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Lets Do Lunch: Meal Protocol

Next time you say, Lets do lunch, you may want to consider how it relates to your ROT. Effective time management is a discipline that must be practiced every day, all day-including meals. The three meals of the day offer an excellent opportunity to extend your selling hours and possibly increase your productivity.

With an eye to that end, I offer you these guidelines on meal protocol and maximizing your meal time with customers:

Breakfast. A great way to begin the day with a potential or existing customer. Meet at 6:30 or 7:00 AM at a spot conveniently located close to their office. The dialogue should be 90% business, 10% social. You are there to sell the customer and through open conversation, discover how to earn their business. Your agenda is, I want your business, how do I go about earning it? Dont be afraid to express your intentions. The conversation will quickly move to business and they expect you to be asking questions. Breakfast is quick, its cheap, and it provides excellent one-on-one time with your customer. It offers a more relaxed venue than the office and may inspire the customer to share some valuable information. Give it a try-it works well.

Lunch. What should be on our agenda when we do lunch ? The primary objective of lunch is to thank them for their business. Dont do lunch until after you are doing business with them. During lunch the dialogue should be 40% business ( Thank you for your business. I want to continue our relationship by exploring other opportunities ) and 60% social. Humanize the relationship and learn about some of their hobbies and interests. Personally, I will not do lunch with a customer until we have had an opportunity to do business together. Lunch can easily be seen as an attempt to buy their business. Dinner. A great way to truly get to know your customer and show your appreciation. The dialogue should be 10% business and 90% social. The 10% business is simply to acknowledge their importance as customers and say thank you-leave it at that and enjoy the evening. However, if the customer wants to talk shop all night, go with it-its their evening. You might want to consider planning some social topics to safeguard against any extended periods of silence. Also, I suggest you make dinner a foursome-include spouses or significant others.

Where did the time go? is a cry frequently heard among sales professionals working under the stress of increased demands. The answer lies in the daily application of five time-management principles to organize your life, using your time in the best possible way. Through effective allocation and organization of your time, you will have more control over your activities and reap the benefits of a proactive approach. The sooner you make the decision to take action, the sooner youll have more time to enjoy life and experience less stress. At the end of the day it comes down to three options: do it, delegate it, or dump it. Enjoy your new-found freedom and the rewards of effective time management. Work to live-dont live to work

Notes

1. Taylor, Harold. Time Management Seminar. Calgary, Alberta. 1993.

2. Author Research.

3. The Calgary Herald. Employee Stress Cuts Productivity, Study Declares. April 15, 1998.

4. Carlson, Richard. Ph.D. Dont Sweat the Small Stuff...and its all small stuff. Page 53-54, 1997. Hyperion.

Chapter 5: Prospecting: I Know Where You Are Hiding

Overview

Remember playing the game hide-and-seek as a child? It was quite gratifying to find the person within the allotted time and then outsmart your friends by hiding where they would never find you. Well, in professional selling, you and your competitor are constantly engaged in a different kind of hide-and-seek. Its called prospecting-corporate hide-and-seek. Potential customers are out there, located in various geographical pockets throughout your territory. Success goes to the one who is most creative in finding and developing new customers, new markets.

Many sales experts and authors suggest that prospecting is the most important activity within the Sequential Model. Filling your sales funnel is the key to your economic survival. Your sales funnel is your inventory of potential customers. Through prospecting, customers enter your funnel as qualified, potential A or B accounts, each with its own sales cycle. Every customer has different viscosity, the time it takes to flow through the funnel and become an active account.

The emphasis on prospecting can vary among various selling fields but at the end of the day your success is determined by the quantity and quality of customers in your funnel. Constant prospecting and cultivation of your market, be it local or global, is the lifeblood of any business. All other activities center around your ability to keep the sales funnel full. However, a major oversight of many salespeople is that they ignore an emptying funnel. They become so focused and excited about developing new leads they fail to remain focused on their commitment to ongoing prospecting. Its not long before they realize their funnel is empty and panic sets in. This could be disastrous as it may be weeks or months before another potential customer works through the funnel. Be cognizant of your funnel inventory and continue to fill it with new opportunities, all while servicing and growing existing accounts.

As a sales entrepreneur, you must actively pursue new potential accounts to ensure you meet and exceed your sales and personal goals. With a customer attrition rate of approximately 15-30% and the constant threat of local and global competition, you cant afford to ignore the significant contribution prospecting makes to a business. Without a commitment to growth, how do you expect to meet or exceed those new quota targets assigned to you every year? You wont. Remember, employers reward results, not activities.

Speaking of growth, its important that as a sales entrepreneur, you understand the difference between economic growth and real growth.